SUGAR BEATS

Thursday, Sept. 10
Music on the “experimental” side isn’t always easy to listen to. Sometimes, you have to “really want it,” as my old junior high football coach used to say — and that’s more than many music listeners are willing to give. Understandable, really — that’s why people like Miley Cyrus exist. Experimental music isn’t easily digested or compartmentalized. That’s the point. Most people don’t like to be challenged. Local wonder Sugar Beats, one of a small crop of Tacoma acts reverberating within a PNW experimental scene that’s strong in Olympia and pervasive in Portland, knows this all to well. And they don’t seem to give a shit — which is good. The band manages to glide a course rich with boundary bashing, yet not intolerably “experimental” — which is also good. Check the band at Bob’s Java Jive tonite, or on Saturday, Oct. 3 at the New Frontier if you bungle your first chance. — Matt Driscoll
[Bob’s Java Jive, with Finding Fiction, Pete Stewart, 8 p.m., 2102 S. Tacoma Way, Tacoma, 253.475.9843]
[The New Frontier Lounge, Friday, Oct. 3, 301 E. 25th St., Tacoma, 253.572.4020]

GOOD GRAVY

Thursday, Sept. 10
Some bands feel so … so … right. Do you know? For whatever reason, a band can sometimes have the key to your roller skates, and fight though you may, you just can’t resist the rock. Good Gravy does it for me, and there’s no explaining it. The tuneful bar band sound, the endearingly Michael-Stipe-with-more-of-a-twang vocals, the occasional dips into funk — it all adds up to something just as comforting and twice as nourishing as its namesake. Good Gravy burns through songs that are somehow simultaneously reminiscent of groups like the J. Geils Band, the underground music movement in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, and the punk/new wave renaissance of the late ‘70s. And it all works. It all feels right. — Rev. Adam McKinney
[Hell’s Kitchen, with The Volunteers, The Spins, 9 p.m., $3, 3829 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.759.6003]

RANDY OXFORD

Friday, Sept. 11
Horn man Randy Oxford will be back at Jazzbones on Sept. 11. Surely, you’ve noticed Oxford’s break from Jazzbones Wednesday appearances. They became almost taken for granted until ceasing to be. This time Oxford is back at Jazzbones with a cause — firefighters. Fitting, no? Oxford is an award-winning blues artist with a long, celebrated history in Tacoma. Oxford lived in Chicago, at the age of 11, when jazz was in everyone’s ears. A trip to see The Music Man, its prolific use of trombones, and a dire need in the school band encouraged Oxford to pick up his first piece of brass. After struggling with music for years, he found a mentor that helped launch a career that took Oxford around the world, eventually returning to the South Sound. He and his trombone have been here ever since. We’re lucky to have them. — Paul Schrag
[Jazzbones, Randy Oxford and Pals Present Remember the Fallen, 8 p.m., $12, 2803 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.396.9169]